The Federal Court Number 1 of La Plata will begin a new trial today against 19 military and police officers, as well as a former Buenos Aires province minister, for crimes against humanity involving some 200 victims committed at two detention centers located on police dependencies during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

The two centers operated at the Infantry Corps of the Buenos Aires Province Police, and the 8th Precinct, both located in La Plata. All the people on trial are accused of illegal imprisonment, torture, and sexual abuse committed against 210 victims, the majority of whom survived and are expected to testify. 

One of the victims was construction worker and Peronist activist Julio López, who disappeared for a second time in 2006 after he testified against Miguel Etchecolatz, a former police officer who at the time was on trial for crimes against humanity committed during the dictatorship.  He remains unaccounted for until this day.

“This is a very important trial. In a way, these two procedures close the circle of the repression operation that took place in this jurisdiction,” said Juan Martín Nogueira, assistant district attorney of the Prosecutors Unit, to Télam. 

“These two sites were an important part of the system of concentration camps of those years.”

The Infantry Corps was in fact operational even before the 1976 coup, a place that saw the early rise of certain repressive tactics that would later evolve into the kidnapping and disappearance of political militants, union members, and random victims.  

“It started operating as a detention center immediately after March 24, 1976, when the dictatorship began, and remained operational until December of that year,” says the indictment presented to the court. Detainees could spend a considerable amount of time there until their fate was decided. 

“Following the coup, numerous people that had been previously identified were detained. In the early morning hours of March 24 and the days that followed, people who had been labeled ‘dangerous’ were kidnapped by military forces and sent to the Infantry Corps,” according to the indictment. 

Detainees included employees and union leaders from companies like YPF, Río Santiago Shipyard, and Swift Refrigerating Plant, among others.

The 8th Precinct, on the other hand, was an epicenter of a different stage of the dictatorship. It was known as a center where people who had been kidnapped and kept at other locations were sent to, either to be released or imprisoned at a formal jail. 

They were moved there during the night, usually in army trucks or unidentified vehicles that belonged to the military. The precinct stands out as a singular location, as it functioned as a place where victims were brought out of clandestine imprisonments and subjected to formal procedures.

Télam